The most battery efficient way to climb and decend?

[photo2be]

I won't address the climb side of the efficiency question, it sounds like people have weighed in on that already. But in terms of getting down with battery efficiency, and getting down is a matter of decreasing lift in a controlled manner, I'd say getting down quickly is the answer. And THAT, from what I've found, seems to occur better with no lateral speed, just dropping straight down. And that would be the case for each mode, although SPORT would be fastest, NORM a close second...CINE, well you know about that.

As Old-Man Mavic said, "if on the other hand you descended at a 45 degree slope moving forwards while descending then the back pair of motors would have to spin faster than the front to allow the drone to move forwards as it descended ..."

That, sounds like the faster rear motors are having to give a little lift, which means you get down a bit slower, and that's something to keep in mind when you're fighting to get down out of the wind. I know there's the instinct to keep pressing for home, but it can be painfully slow to get down when keeping lateral motion to home. I know your question had more to do with efficiency though.

That's not to say don't do it. Sport mode, with no forward or side stick, just max down on the elevation, it's almost too scary of a drop...unless you want that. Probably pretty energy efficient though.

Thanx alot Thomas_02!

 

[Meta4]

I want to stay at 400ft/122m right above me as long as possible.

If you just want to go straight up and hover, the tiny amount of battery used climbing and descending won't make any difference that you'd be able to measure, however you do it.

 

[scro]

I want to stay at 400ft/122m right above me as long as possible.

Ascend full-speed in S mode to get to altitude quickly - it is a bit more power hungry, but also 40% faster than N mode. Ascending slower will have the motors running longer and, although they aren't working quite as hard, they'll draw more energy from the battery overall due to the longer duration.

When at altitude maintain a slow forwards air speed. If there is a light wind then you can keep the drone in place as the wind will provide the air speed. If there's no wind then slow forward flight will be needed to give the drone some airspeed, perhaps flying round in lazy circles. This is where you can extend your flight time the most. Hovering with zero airspeed uses more power than slow forward flight. There is a reason why DJI's claimed max flight times include a note saying it was at a constant speed of XXX.

Contrary to what post #20 says, descending with a small forward velocity is more energy efficient than descending vertically, particularly at higher rates of descent. If you drop vertically the props fall into their own downwash and have to work harder to stop the drone from going into freefall. Listen carefully when you drop fast vertically and you will hear the motor speeds fluctuating quite a bit. Now try descending while slowly flying forward and the motor speeds are much more steady, and there is much less noise from the props. A steady motor uses less power than one that is accelerating and decelerating. All the surmising about rear props providing more lift and slowing the descent is a distraction. All the props are providing lift all the time, otherwise the drone would start to tumble and drop out of the sky. When descending with some forward movement the rear props just take a greater share of that same amount of lift, with the front props taking a smaller share.

In reality all these things will get you imperceptible amounts of extra air time, so just fly up to altitude, do your stuff and then come back down again. If that doesn't give you enough "loiter time" at 122m altitude then you may need to invest in a very long pole, or dive down the rabbit hole of hardware modding to add extra battery packs.

 

[erengel]

On my mavic, I can pull each stick down to the inside and my drone will come down fast with no battery drain. Very efficient, but a very rough landing...

 

[GadgetGuy]

On my mavic, I can pull each stick down to the inside and my drone will come down fast with no battery drain. Very efficient, but a very rough landing...

You need to learn to hand catch!